[Women with endometriosis: are they different from others?]

The objective of this short review is to identify the particularities of women with endometriosis, especially those complaining of pain and with the most severe lesions. Genetic aberrations play, with a high probability, a major role in the development of this disease, its severity, its tendency to recur and also in its capacity to degenerate. The abnormalities of the endometrium, with exacerbated biological activities, are an example. The woman with endometriosis seems more sensitive to pain through various mechanisms, such as central hypersensitivity and decrease threshold to somatoceptive pain and several associated psychological disorders. Endometriosis is often associated with other painful conditions such as irritable bowel syndrome, interstitial cystitis and fibromyalgia. Finally, also appears also to have a higher risk to develop non Hodgkin's lymphoma or ovarian cancer. These particularities, some of them being still speculative or controversial, should be known in routine practise, in order to offer a better multidisciplinary management, not only for short term, but also long term issues.